Papa M wrote:Unfortunately the lengthy medley was unlistenable due to the continual comic muttering of the poor old presenter - who is obviously given the brief "Take the Piss - even when someone actually plays some good music!". :?

Exactly. Which is why I'm kind of surprised that anyone would get upset when he does what he's paid to do, and that which is probably the only reason Eurovision still gets aired on prime time Saturday night TV. If he didn't play the Irish iconoclast (Little Englander indeed!) about the whole shebang, I'm sure national UK TV exposure would have sunk without trace long ago. Unfortunately, it seems that some decent music got caught in the crossfire this time round, but it would have taken an unprecedented loss of (Wogan's idea of) humour and a complete negation of his reason for commentating on the farce for the past 300 years (or whatever) for it to have been any other way. And seriously, how many people watching on the night were likely converts anyway? For most people, Goran would have been tainted just by appearing in the closest thing the planet has to musical Hades in the first place.

The last time I saw Goran Bregovic his guest singer was Dana International (Europhiles will remember that s/he was Israel's cross-dressing winner of a few years back). Wogan's comments of last night might have been better aimed at that lousy show.

NormanD wrote:The last time I saw Goran Bregovic his guest singer was Dana International (Europhiles will remember that s/he was Israel's cross-dressing winner of a few years back). Wogan's comments of last night might have been better aimed at that lousy show.

...and apparently Dana International wrote this year's Israeli entry. I can't believe I know that.

Wogan's Irishness is neither here nor there as far as I'm concerned, so I'm surprised anyone felt the need to mention it. I missed the bit where he talked over the good music so can't comment, but what he said in the closing moments of the show struck me as very close to a farewell to the whole shebang, the sentiment was very much that the way the whole thing was organised, especially the voting, was now beyond a joke and he'd lost the will to even bother poking fun at it anymore.

The idea of a genuine international quality song competition has been mooted many times and I don't see why it couldn't be done. Now that Eurovision has descended into pure spectacle and politicking maybe some kind of space can open up, and possibly some in the world music community might have some part to play. On a much smaller scale perhaps, but I'm not holding out any great hopes.

Terry Wogan is on the way out anyway and the only thing that actually keeps him doing it is the 150,000GBP+ that he earns for the night. He's obviously bored and disinterested in the whole Eurovision thing and that was obvious by his lack of knowledge of anything - he said that Armenia would vote Balkan.... so he hasn't a clue even to where most of the participants' countries lie on the map. But scarily he is reflective of the attitude of the general UK audience who share many of his sentiments. Actually there were loads of comments on Eurovision fan sites saying that the interval act (i.e. Goran Bregovic) was the 'worst in a long time', so that's quite indicative of the lack of musical taste displayed by many Eurovision fanatics. On the flipside, I also watched the Eurovision on Macedonian satellite TV and the Macedonian commentator said that Brega provided the only decent music of the night! Anyway, the night for me was spoiled by the predictability of the voting. My prime example of the type of voting that happens was when Bulgaria gave 12 points to Germany, despite Germany putting up the worst song of the night. Why the 12 points? Why of course, one of the 4 German screachers is Bulgarian.

I'm surprised that questions have not been raised in Parliament concerning the underhand way in which Balkan countries are ruining everything the English/British/Irish get involved in. First it was those dastardly Croatians knocking England out of the European Cup and now it's the entire Balkan region voting for each other and not for us. Life is so unfair, isn't it?

What nobody seems to be appreciating is, these votes are made by individual residents, in their tens of thousands, so how can anybody manipulate them? The same observation applies to the supposed 'cheating' by Franco in 1968 - how could he twist the arms of thousands of voters in other countries to prefer Spain over the UK? People just preferred La La La better to Cliff's anaemic offering.

So while Wogan seethes, we have to remember, this is what democracy gives us: George Bush as US president, a Russian song as Eurovision winner.

I'm in no position to comment on this year's competition as I haven't actually heard any of the songs, and I can't remember when I last watched the thing. But I feel I must step in and correct Charlie's Cliff controversy comments.

Back in 1968, voting was by juries, not the great unwashed. There was little risk of Franco getting repetitive stress syndrome in twisting people's arms.

The Spanish entry, â€˜La La Laâ€™ by Massiel, beat 'Congratulations' by a single point. As a result, plucky Cliff was forced to settle for the runners-up spot, narrowly missing out to the coveted â€˜Least Worst Eurovision Songâ€™ for 1968.

However, Cliff was able to have the last laugh, with 'Congratulations' knocking Massiel's effort off the top of the Spanish pop chart (viva democracy!). He also returned to the Eurovision fray in 1973 with â€˜Power To All Our Friendsâ€™ and winning the richly-deserved title of â€˜Third-Least-Worst Eurovision Songâ€™ for that year. He also went on to date quite a famous tennis player, a lady one, and sang a song with Van Morrison.

PS I also take exception to the use of the word 'anaemic' to describe 'Congratulations'. Surely 'risible' would be more appropriate.

If Cliff had a dollar for every time Congratualtions is played in a Korean pub, he might well be a very rich man today. It's become an adjunct to Happy Birthday to You, which is sung by the birthday boy or girl's friends, followed by a rendition of Congratuations on the pub's sound system, either by Cliff himself or in a Korean version. In a family restaurant like TGI Friday's, the waiting staff will come to your table and sing it for you.
As for La, la la, it was covered by no less a singer than Amalia Rodrigues.
And as for General Franco, he once drove, or rather was driven, past me when I was hitchhiking near his summer house in El Ferrol. I didn't get a ride.

I didn't watch the Eurovision at all, but incidentally spent that night in the company of friends, one of whom was this Serbian rap/hip-hop MC from Belgrade, who couldn't have cared less for the Eurovision, who was becoming extremely drunk on the 85% poisonous absinth he had brought from Belgrade, was very friendly and not upset at all, but still spoke (in Russian, but then a lot of those curse words and phrases are similar in Serbian and Russian) using many of the expressions that basketball player uses.

My guess is that cursing a lot is an inherent part of any (male) Serbian discourse and that one shouldn't pay too much attention to it. That basketball player is probably nowhere near as pissed off as the translation makes it sound.

As for the Eurovision winner: Dima Bilan is actually not ethnic Russian, I think he is from one of those numerous Muslim nationalities living in the Caucasus region.

He got a lot of votes from the large Russian-speaking diasporas in former Soviet Union countries, Israel and so on, but that doesn't explain everything, obviously. I read on a finnish news site, that he got a lot of help from e.g. this guy
http://www.jimbeanz.com/. A very costly international project, with good results, if you care about the Eurovision.